


hemlock and after.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: A charming B&B, Fallen Castiel, Gardening, Human Castiel, M/M, Married Dean and Castiel, Salvation Inn, Vermont, Vermont!Verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-11-22 13:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So what now? Move to Vermont, open up a charming B&B?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_"So what now? Move to Vermont, open up a charming B &B?"_

Cas finds he likes gardening.  

There's a nurturing aspect to gardening that appeals to him. Tending to newly-sprouted seeds, rooting a heirloom lilac cutting, transplanting rosemary from their neighbor’s garden, planting a border of annuals for their color and perennials for their longevity, helping oak saplings establish roots.  He feels a flicker of pride when the bulbs he planted last fall bloom early, all white-tipped snowdrops, and jonquils in a hundred shade of yellow, and the pink-stained petals of the crocuses.  Watching his vegetables grow, participating in the cycle of life.

He enjoys the physical aspect of the work, too.  Working outside, in a quiet sanctuary of his own creation, alone and at peace. Digging without gloves, so that he always has dirt under his nails and browned skin up to his elbows. He likes the way the slightly moist soil feels under his fingers when he plants rosebushes; it reminds him of pulling Adam from his grave.  Bringing forth life from a void.   

He finds he doesn’t care much for gardens that are too orderly, the ones with daylilies and dahlias planted in straight, uncompromising lines; the ones where flowers are arranged methodically in squared-off patches of color.  These gardens remind him achingly of his heaven, the park with its neat borders and carefully arranged flower beds.  

Here on earth, Cas likes his gardens untamed, unruly, even messy - crowed patches of flowers spilling over the edges, the jumbled-up effect of every color viewed all at once, so he mixes up the seed packets of ox-eye daisies and yarrow and blanketflower, black-eyed Susan and rocket, cornflower and prairie sunflower and Queen Anne’s lace, and  he tosses them in a blank patch of dirt, to wait for the day when they spring into life, blossoming satisfactorily with a thousand hues.  

This garden always needs him, always requires Cas’s attention, needs him to bring water every day and prune back the roses and keep the beds free of weeds, and Dean likes that about Cas’s garden, because it’s one more thing to keep Cas here on earth, home with him.


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a forest behind the farmhouse, all pine and cedar, fir and spruce, and it’s there that Dean discovers the angels.

He finds the angels in a clearing, sprawled among the roots of an old hemlock.  There’s a pair of concrete wings rising out of the snow, and the sight stops him in his tracks.  

Dean gets on his knees, dusting away thin icicles and and dried pine needles, and under his hands, more angels appear, until at last he sits back and takes a look.

It’s a graveyard of broken concrete angels, someone’s discarded lawn ornaments, their heads and shoulders and the tips of their wings all mantled with snow: Broken angels missing an ear, a curl of hair, a nose, a wing.  Some angels are missing whole heads, others are missing fingers and arms and bits of their robes, and there are some angels that have been shattered into so many pieces that nothing remains but a haloed head, or a sandaled foot.

And there are angels that are whole but cracked, standing there in silent suffering with long jagged lines created by time and weather, frost and rain.  There are angels splitting into halves, not yet broken but almost there: An angel with fragile paper-thin cracks like spiderwebs splintering apart its wings, and another with a fierce jagged gash running across its chest, splitting apart right where its concrete heart would be, if it had one. 

Dean looks at the angels for a long moment in the silence and the snow, then he wheels away, trudging back to the farmhouse without a backwards glance. 

He spends the rest of the winter thinking about the angels. 

He thinks Cas might would have liked it there, in that silent concrete cemetery among the pines, but he doesn’t mention the angels to Cas, doesn’t dare bring Cas out to the forest, not when looking ahead to each next-day is like trying to peer through a window frosted over with ice.

He doesn’t go back, not until the snow begins to melt, turning the ground into an icy brown slush with hopeful green things emerging cautiously. 

The broken angels are still there, waiting patiently, and for some reason that makes Dean smile.

He waits and wonders, watching Cas out of the corner of his eye, and the night after snowdrops first bloom in the corners of Cas’s garden he sneaks away with a flashlight and Cas’s wheelbarrow. 

He doesn’t say a word the next day, but when Cas heads outside with thick work gloves on his hands, he slips out the door behind him and follows him to the garden, and holds his breath when Cas stops in surprise.   

There are angels, angels everywhere, broken angels nestled in every corner of Cas’s garden, every last angel Dean had found under the old hemlock: Angels standing like sentinels where the morning glories will bloom, angels in the herb patch among the angelica and St. John’s wort and wormwood, angels tucked among the columbine and bleeding-heart.


	3. Chapter 3

“Charming” isn’t really the right word.

They may have repaired the roof, but they never repainted the farmhouse: there are weathered gray boards peeking through the badly-peeling whitewash.  The farmhouse crouches behind hedges of hawthorn and yew, dark windows frowning over the sagging porch like a witch’s cottage, and the glass of the oriel window is inscribed with needle-fine cracks.

There are devil’s traps carved into the wooden floorboards; there are Enochian sigils over every window, and the heavy oak  table where they eat their daily bread is more often used for cleaning guns.

They put more effort into the guesthouse: lace curtains for the windows, a vase of flowers on the table, and crumbling leaves of angelica and St. John’s wort under every guest’s pillow, for protection: this is the safest inn in New England, and hunters know that if they seek clemency here, they will sleep soundly at night, watched over by a guardian angel of their very own, and by the man who looks at him with stars in his eyes.

The china may be cracked, and the glasses chipped, but this is where these pilgrims flock: though there is no sign by the door, they call this place Salvation.


	4. Chapter 4

Sometimes you remember when he was newly formed, built of nothing but stardust and chaos and fallen straight out of the stratosphere, back when you made lists of things to teach him, lists of all the first times he would have with you: the first sip of coffee, or the first day spent in bed, watching the sun slide across the wall. 

You didn’t teach him to program a remote, or to make a sandwich; those honors belong to a woman in Colorado, left behind, her name forgotten.  You didn’t teach him to wash the dishes after every meal, or to sweep every corner, dust each nook and cranny, or to tuck the corners of your sheets firmly under the mattress, and you certainly didn’t teach him how to lean into your kisses, flicking his tongue between your lips.

You didn’t teach him any of these habits, and it still surprises you sometimes with how badly these small thorns sting, that he learned the most fundamental aspects of humanity from someone other than you, everything normal and basic and good, all these things that the two of you might have discovered together, hand in hand.

And so it’s he who teaches you, instead, how to flip a mattress, how to scrub the glass in your windows with vinegar until they shine, or how to sprinkle mint across the thresholds to keep the ants at bay. And it’s he who teaches you to use a waffle iron, to sort your socks, to hang your faded flannel shirts facing east.  

But there are first times, after all: the first stale cherry danish for breakfast, the first slice of pie served on a red-checked tablecloth; the first trailing fingerprints left behind on the dusty glass panes of a window, or the first wilted flower half-dried by the sun on the windowsill, the one you pretend not to notice because you can’t bear to throw it away.

And there are still things left to show him, like how it feels to be held each night by someone who loves him, what it’s like to cry on someone’s shoulder, what it means for you to take his hand and press kisses in his palm.  

You’re allowed to teach him how to love, and it’s through your care that he’ll learn that it’s all right to reach for you, whenever he needs the weight of your hand upon his knee, or your fingers dipping through the nimbus of his hair. 

And it’s you who’ll teach him what it means to be treasured,because  _someone_ needs to,  _someone_  needs to love him, someone needs to show him that he’s cared for, appreciated, adored.

You’ll show him each hairline fracture that cracks your heart each time he breathes your name in the quiet darkness of your room, and he’ll stroke the hollows between every aching rib with careful fingers.

And on the first time he whispers  _I love you,_  it feels like bottle rockets and firecrackers going off inside your chest.

And all-too soon there will be fewer and fewer _firsts_ , and more  _seconds_ and  _thirds_ and  _fourths_ , but still you’ll always be the first to build a home for him inside your bones, the first to carve a place for him in your heart, the first to rip apart the seams holding your life together, only to tuck him carefully inside and stitch yourself back up.


End file.
